Hesjedal focused on healing

By NEIL DAVIDSON The Canadian PressPublished July 24, 2012 - 4:17am Last Updated July 24, 2012 - 6:14am

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Canadian Ryder Hesjedal says he is ready for the London Olympics despite a crash July 6 during the Tour de France. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

While other athletes time their training to peak at the Olympics, the Tour de France cyclists arrive with their bodies still hurting from a brutal 3,497-kilometre trek.

Some, like Canadian Ryder Hesjedal, crashed and have the scars to prove it.

Flying off your bike at close to 70 kilometres per hour into a tangle of bodies, machinery and unforgiving tarmac is hardly an ideal entree to the Summer Games. But such is the harsh world of elite road racing, where breaking down your body is par for the course.

“It’s a hard sport,” Hesjedal said dryly from his home in Girona, Spain.

The 31-year-old from Victoria was hurt July 6 during the sixth stage of the Tour, one of at least two dozen riders caught up in a nasty crash with 26 kilometres left on the day.

In the carnage of the crash, the Giro d’Italia winner went down and suffered road rash to his hip, knee and ankle. But the real damage came when, upon impact, his leg slammed into another rider’s bike.

“Just like a baseball bat being swung into your leg,” Hesjedal said by way of description.

At six foot two and 159 pounds, wearing only a thin uniform, there’s not a lot of padding.

A bloody Hesjedal, who started the day in ninth place overall, picked himself up and finished the ride. He had fallen 99 places in the standings.

“When you’re getting crashed that way and people are on top of you and you’ve taken the energy of other riders all together, the body doesn’t stand up very good,” he told The Canadian Press.

“But in the big picture, I’m very lucky. I didn’t break anything or have any major tearing of something. It’s just unfortunate the one main thing just didn’t let me function properly so I could really race at that point.”

That thing would be his leg.

The impact occurred just below his hip — “the crease in the leg where you’re pedalling.”